Archive for January 2011

It is exciting to see the Egyptian people rebelling against the Mubarak regime and demanding democracy. They should be fully supported. At the same time, it is hard to predict where all of this is headed, especially given the lack of clear leadership among the opposition forces. The US, of course, has been a big […]

“Dealing with Assange and the Wikileaks secrets,” The New York Times Magazine, by Bill Keller “Nudge on trial,” Slate, by David Weigel “Detroitism: what does ‘ruin porn’ tell us about the motor city?” Guernica, by John Patrick Leary “Crunch time: Barack Obama’s next two years,” The Economist “The revolt of the elites,” n+1, by The […]

In Slate, William Saletan last week used the recent case of the Philadelphia abortion-clinic doctor, Kermit Gosnell, to re-state his argument against late-term abortion. In that article, one of the “absolutists” who Saletan criticizes is Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. Furedi herself recently wrote “a moral defence of late abortion” in spiked,which […]

Heading into tomorrow night’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama is riding a wave of rising approval ratings. Most polls over the past week show Obama at over a 50 percent approval rating. Real Clear Politics’ average of polls (graph above) finds 51.0 percent approve, the President’s highest rating since November 2009. This is quite a […]

For a level-headed take on the Amy “Tiger Mother” Chua business that puts the discussion into perspective, I recommend you read Nancy McDermott’s post. She argues that this is another case of “seeing social and cultural issues through the prism of parenting”: It seems to me that we have displaced classical philosophical questions about the nature of […]

“What is a good life?” The New York Review of Books, by Ronald Dworkin “The baby butcher: pro-choice absolutism and a grisly abortion scandal in Philadelphia,” Slate, by William Saletan “Back to full employment,” Boston Review, by Robert Pollin “Real men find real utopias,” Dissent, by Russell Jacoby [Review of Envisioning Real Utopias, by Erik […]

This Naomi Klein talk is so crass, wrong and bad, it’s hard to know where to start. In about 19 minutes, Klein manages to: make a glib a analogy between the BP oil spill and financial crisis criticize risk-taking as “reckless” advocate the precautionary principle elevate Mother Nature over humanity (and present Mother Nature as truly feminine) blame men, and […]

In his “Dot Earth” blog for the New York Times, journalist Andrew Revkin yesterday wrote about his recent correspondence with spiked editor Brendan O’Neill on the issue of over-population. It’s brief, but a great read nonetheless. The post is called “Deconstructing a bestiary of Malthusian ‘miserabilists'”, and Revkin quotes O’Neill as saying: An NGO that arrives in poor Africa […]

Remembering Martin Luther King on his Day. Remarkable man. This video is of King speaking in Montgomery, Alabama in March 1965. It reminds us of one of his great talents: his oration. Such poetry in his powerful words, such passion, and made all the more important because he was backed by a real struggle. Note how the lyrics of the Battle […]

Praise has been heaped on President Obama for his speech at the Tucson memorial service last Wednesday, from both the right (“terrific” according to John McCain) and the left (“magic” wrote Gail Collins). If you missed it, you can watch the video here, or read the text here. For the most part, Obama’s speech was a […]